Ferdinand Oyono, a Cameroonian diplomat and politician, was best known as the author of Houseboy, first published in 1956 as Une vie de boy. Writing in French during the 1950s, he produced a brief literary career of anti-colonialist novels that are considered classics of twentieth-century African literature. Alongside his writing, he had a long career in government, serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1992 to 1997 and as Minister of State for Culture from 1997 to 2007. He died in 2010.
